Imagine you could time travel back to a just a decade ago and observe the typical day of someone working in your industry. Chances are the way they communicated, organized their work day, and pursued their strategic goals would be very different from how you work now.

We’ve adopted new technologies, structured our work days differently, and changed the way we define and measure success. So, why are so many companies still running training the way they always have?

The world is new, and it’s changing rapidly. You want your employees to be evolving, too — and the quickest way to keep pace with change is to build thoughtful, adaptive employee education into the very fabric of your company.

But, all this training will only work if you have employee buy-in. If your employees are unconvinced of the value of a training, bored by its contents, or distracted by pressing work, they won’t learn much, no matter how fantastic your training is.

Here’s how to give your employees the training they want.

Give them autonomy in what they learn and how they learn it.

Think about the last project you were passionate about. Even if you didn’t conceive of it from end to end, you likely had some degree of say over its direction and outcomes.

To get engagement from your employees on learning initiatives, start by asking them what they want. It may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to get excited about a training initiative and forget to gather the input of the most important people involved: the students.

To keep your team front and center of any learning initiative, encourage open discussions about learning and development.

Find out what learning opportunities your employees want.

Ask new employees what training they wished they’d had in previous positions.

Solicit feedback on previous training.

Bring employees into discussions about content, timing, and goals.

Give employees the resources they need to create their own opportunities.

Make their education relevant to their goals and challenges.

38% of workers worry about falling behind in acquiring necessary new skills.

37% worry their current job skills are inadequate for a promotion.

36% struggle to keep their skills up-to-date.

36% believe their current job skills fall short of where they should be.

So, before launching a training, take the time to articulate how it ties to the bigger picture. One great way to do this is to tie learning objectives to the specific business goals, team challenges, or professional development.

Example #1

Learning objective: Administrative coordinator will demonstrate skilled use of Group Broadcast text messages.

Improved learning objective, tied to business goals: Administrative coordinator will demonstrate skilled use of Group Broadcast text messages to increase quarterly appointments scheduled.

Example #2

Learning objective: Sales team members will demonstrate familiarity with all the essential features of karmaCRM.

Improved learning objective tied to solutions: Sales team members will demonstrate familiarity with all the essential features of karmaCRM to reduce lost prospects and make outreach process more efficient.

Example #3

Learning objective: Team leads will successfully complete two of the five technology eLearning modules.

Improved learning objective, tied to long-term growth: Team leads will successfully complete the two technology eLearning modules they believe will be most valuable in supporting their future career goals.

Anticipate and remove stumbling blocks.

Great leaders don’t pretend to have all the answers. Instead, they remove obstacles preventing their team from finding the answers themselves. Though your employees may know what they want, they may not have insight into what’s standing in their way of achieving it.

To be skilled at developing your team, pay close attention to how your employees learn and what impedes their success.

For example, if you have an employee who is often overshadowed by larger personalities, you may consider offering optional one-on-one tutorials or eLearning modules to supplement group learning.

If you know you have employees who struggle to listen before offering feedback or solutions, embed periods of silent individual reflection in your training before resuming a group discussion.

If an employee knows they need a certain training but is having trouble fitting it into their schedule, give them a deadline for completion. This will help them understand the training is a priority for management and give them permission to shift around other work to accommodate learning time.

Tap into their emotions.

When the world is moving a mile-a-millisecond, it becomes harder and harder to get and keep your employees’ attention. So, even when you have their buy-in, your trainings need to be engaging, fun, and memorable to cut through all the noise.

Cat videos hold our attention because they generate feelings of happiness. A picture of a friend who lives far away holds our attention because it generates feelings of love. So — you guessed it — to get their attention, create a high-emotion learning experience.

In addition to getting their attention, emotional experience is a key way to generate behavior change. That’s what makes emotion so key in creating training that leads to lasting results.

Both positive and negative emotions can increase engagement and attention. Here are some emotional states that are great for learning retention — and how you might create them in your trainings.

Ask your team to give an example of a time when they failed to achieve a goal

Discuss the ramifications of lacking skills or knowledge

Show a video of someone doing a task poorly

Nostalgia

Solicit positive memories from your team around a specific topic and incorporate their memories into discussion

Draw on classic TV, movies, books, and songs in your examples

Frame lessons around historic events (such as the moon landing or a total eclipse)

Make it interactive.

Another way to be heard above the din is to make the learning experience interactive. In many industries, employees spend a lot of time at their desks, in front of computers, or on their smartphones. Shake things up a bit!

Ask questions instead of solely giving answers.

Include group breakout discussions.

Plan for hands-on activities and demonstrations that allow employees to learn through doing.

Include IRL assignments within eLearning modules, such as making a new connection with someone at a remote office, live group brainstorms, or hands-on tool use.

Create a game or competition to incentivize learning.

Implement microlearning opportunities throughout the workday.

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There you have it — how to deliver the training that your employees really want.